Monday, March 17, 2014

According to the report China is closing the next mega deal in the resource sector in order to secure the supply of strategic commodities. This time it is copper. Another Chinese company - China National Gold is reported to be in talks with Ivanhoe on DRC Copper mine. We guess that the end of the world will be postponed again and China is using any opportunity to buy the real assets at the cheapest price possible. China is executing the state-level plan to diversify its reserves out of US Dollar and is buying assets in Gold, Copper and Lithium. We have mentioned before the rumours about Barrick Gold being in talks over its huge Pascua Lama with CITIC from China and are monitoring the sector for the conformation.

"Is this rumour too good to be true for the proud people of Argentina? Can Argentina ever make its come back in mining? On the one hand we have still the very strong perception of the high political risk and on another hand we have reports from the ground about the changing environment in the country:

"Meanwhile, when asked by an analyst to comment on the future of the Navidad project, PanAm CEO Geoff Burns said he sees signs of noted improvement “in our operating environment and in the attractiveness of making investments” in Argentina.

“There was a new chief of cabinet installed…now a couple of months ago,” he observed. “And he certainly seems to be driving a more business-friendly environment, or at least, pushing for a more business-friendly environment.”

“I was down there [in Argentina] just a couple of weeks ago, and I would say I am more optimistic than I have been in the last couple of years about the future of Argentina and the future of mining investment in Argentina,” Burns advised."

The reports provided on the links below are suggesting that this particular move by Barrick Gold could not be so far fetched: company has confirmed that it is working on strategic partnerships on Pascua Lama and that partners from China are of a particular interest for the company. Argentinean government has even organised negotiations with Chile in order to bring Pascua Lama project back to life. We will not rush ahead to the conclusions and will wait for the official confirmations about these talks, but the trend is quite apparent for the industry insiders and we had discussed it before.

Mining giant Glencore XstrataGLNCY -1.99% PLC is close to reaching an agreement on the multibillion-dollar sale of its Las Bambas Peruvian copper project to a Chinese consortium and could announce the deal as early as Tuesday, people familiar with the situation said Monday.

The management of both Glencore and China Minmetals Corp, the state-controlled Chinese copper company leading the Chinese consortium, are set for a final meeting Tuesday in London with an aim toward signing an agreement, the people said. If all goes well, the sale of the Las Bambas mine—which would be one of the biggest Chinese mining acquisitions in recent years—could be announced after that, they said. There is still a chance that talks won't result in the signing of a deal.

Glencore Xstrata agreed to sell Las Bambas to win approval from China's Ministry of Commerce, known as Mofcom, for Glencore International PLC to acquire Xstrata PLCAluminum Corp. of China,2600.HK +0.77% or Chinalco, took a 12% stake in Anglo-Australian mining giant Rio Tinto PLC for US$14 billion, according to Dealogic.

A signing of the deal would cap months of negotiations that at times were strained. As recently as last month, talks between the Glencore and Minmetals' sides hit a snag over price, pushing talks beyond an internal March 4 deadline to reach a deal. The price the Chinese consortium will pay has yet to be determined and will be completed at the London meeting, one of the people said. The Chinese consortium ended up the front-runner for the asset earlier this year, people familiar with the deal said. At the time, they said Las Bambas would likely be sold for more than US$5 billion.

—Li Xin and Alex MacDonald contributed to this article."

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